Water authority mulls new pipeline

The Canadian River Municipal Water Authority decided Wednesday to further investigate two options to add a pipeline to allow the agency to more fully utilize its Roberts County well field.

The choices range in cost from $173 million to $257 million.

“I don’t think there’s any question the next step is one of the pipeline options,” said Amarillo City Manager Jarrett Atkinson. “The basic premise is to get enough water to run the aqueduct at its capacity. But we have to answer the questions: When would it be most appropriate? What are the costs? How does that benefit each member city?”

The authority is composed of 11 member cities — the largest are Amarillo and Lubbock — in the Texas Panhandle and South Plains.

The existing pipeline from the well field, currently the authority’s only source of water, can move about 65,000 acre-feet of water per year. An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons. That is less than the approximately 80,000 acre-feet the cities have used in the past when Lake Meredith contributed to the flow further down the transmission system.

The well field transmission line joins the larger main aqueduct near the lake. The cheaper option would be to build a parallel pipeline to the main line at that point. The more expensive option would be to construct a transmission line somewhere near U.S. Highway 60 from the part of the well field, currently in development, southwest past Pampa to the main aqueduct near Amarillo.

“That’s the best choice,” said authority General Manager Kent Satterwhite. “It goes to where the development will be. Amarillo won’t have to treat the water as surface water because it won’t go through surface tanks like it does on the other line, and it adds redundancy to the system. That’s important if we have any problems with a line.”

Both lines would feed the main transmission line beginning in Amarillo.

“We want to be able to get to 126,000 acre-feet,” Satterwhite said.

City managers of the member cities have held discussions with the authority’s staff and indicated a general time frame of 2020 to build the line.

“Some cities have indicated we should proceed with preliminary work,” Satterwhite said. “We have $7 million left from phase three of the well field for design and starting right-of-way acquisition.”

As a temporary cushion, Amarillo will have full access to its new Potter County Wellfield’s 20 million gallons per day before peak demand this summer, and Lubbock will be able to tap Lake Alan Henry by the end of the year with a pipeline and pumping system that’s under construction.

In other business, directors voted to implement the authority’s drought contingency plan for the first time ever. That will involve helping the members that have initiated their own plans to educate their residents about the benefits of conservation. Those cities are Levelland, Lubbock, Slaton and Lamesa.